According to Bloomberg‘s “in the know” sources, French carrier Iliad is planning to bid for a larger stake in T-Mobile US than it had originally sought earlier in the year.

“The plan for a new bid comes after Iliad had some success signing up financial partners to back its efforts, the people said. The company held talks with potential investors including buyout firm KKR & Co., people with knowledge of the matter said last month, and discussed raising as much as $5 billion in additional debt and equity for a sweetened offer.”

Its initial offer, back in July, was for 56.6% of the company at a price of $33 per share. And despite the speculation that Deutsche Telekom is looking for offers between $35-$40 per share, Iliad doesn’t intend to raise its per share offer. Instead, it’s planning to increase the size of its stake. Its own self-imposed deadline is still in place, and Iliad plans to have made a definite decision before the end of this month.

DT is said to be in regular contact with the French Telecoms company, but purportedly hasn’t made a decision on whether or not it would accept an offer for a larger stake. As has already been repeated, DT’s ideal candidate is a company with an existing U.S. subscriber base and U.S. spectrum. Iliad has neither. There’s even been rumors floating around this past week indicating that Deutsche Telekom is happy to keep hold of T-Mobile for at least another year.

About Cam Bunton

Cam Bunton, Managing Editor. A film school graduate from the University of Cumbria, UK, Cam's past life was in mobile phone retail. His passion for cell phones got him in to that industry, and then in to this one. A family man with three kids, he somehow manages to balance his work duties with family life and a runaway Twitter addiction. Follow him on twitter: @CamBunton

No, DT didn’t, but it’s the opinion of an investment analyst, which, at this point, is nothing but a rumor.

g2a5b0e

I don’t know if DT stated that, but I thought Legere might have said it.

Adrayven

Exactly the same thing. They were intending to merge the 2, how is that not the same? Hell, they had the Sprint CEO in on the talks! lol

g2a5b0e

I’m not saying it wouldn’t have happened, but they never stated they were going to merge the two. You literally just made that up.

philyew

They certainly courted Sprint before the AT&T offer was made…

Ty Christensen

These prices changed about 3 weeks ago

Maximus

If DT is selling their stake in TMO, why do they care who buys it or whether or not they have “an existing subscriber base and U.S. spectrum”? That just doesn’t make sense. If I’m selling a car and someone hands me cash for the asking price, do I really care about their credentials?

dtam

Maybe because an Iliad deal wouldn’t be for DT’s entire stake. so DT might still have a 10% stake (as an example) in TMUS

Adrayven

That would be why Iliad is upping the price for a total buyout.. At that point, DT won’t care as long as it can pass regulatory hurdles.

dtam

just going by the article, it still doesn’t say that Iliads is going to buy out DT’s entire 67% stake. Just know that it’s somewhere between 56.7% and 66.7% so DT still might have an interest in TMUS succeeding

Adrayven

True, the article doesn’t say that it’s a total buyout .. but I doubt DT would accept anything less than a total buyout if Iliad keeps the same per stock bid.

dtam

Could very well be true. Maybe another reason why DT wants to sell to someone with credentials is that it would help with regulatory approval

Maximus

still doesn’t make sense. They’ve said all along that they want out of the U.S. market. If you want to sell, why not sell all of it? What rationale is there to keep 10%? And if the rationale is to make money because TMO is doing well, then why not keep your stake in TMO? There is something we don’t know.

philyew

DT were due to get an 8% equity stake in AT&T if that deal had gone ahead. There were rumors of something similar from a Softbank deal, IIRC.

It’s possible they would want a similar deal from Illiad and would therefore be interested in the optimum performance of the future US operation.

MaXipAd

Actually it’s been known that they want to reinvest their money on the Europe side of there business.
If they want to concentrate their time on their home network and still profit from building up TMobile it makes complete sense.
Maybe if you actually read the articles here instead of just spouting random thoughts you would understand.

There has to be something we don’t see. Why hasn’t Dish said anything yet I wonder?

Brian Perez

Dish is greedy and they have said in thé past they prefer tl work with sprint… And they dont want to engagé into price wars.”they want to wait till.After the spectrum.auction to make a bid.”

Deadeye37

I’d really like to see Dish join with T-mobile. I use both and think they’re both really good. It would be really nice for bundling also.

Willie D

I don’t want bundling or contracts. And both are what Dish is all about now. In the beginning they were month to month, no deposits, no contracts, buy what you want kinda deals, but now that they got bigger, they are losing customers, and terrified of that aspect, so they have become crazy rigid. Hell even my parents who are on an elderly budget moved from “cheap” Dish back to Comcast cause they can’t stand Dish’s ever changing prices and policie .

DirkDigg1er

Bundling services is bad for the consumer.

Bilesha Welton

No thanks

DirkDigg1er

The price is too high. Dish only moves when they have leverage. As mentioned above they won’t make an offer until after the spectrum auctions.

Jay J. Blanco

Dish isnt interested until after AWS auction in November.

Bilesha Welton

Because I’ve been sending them psychic signals to keep T-Mobile free from their (Dish’s) greed. Dish supports the very things T-Mobile has been against as the Uncarrier

Wilfredo Martinez

Even if Dish did purchase T-Mobile, they would be the owners but they wouldn’t be operating it. Right now DT is the owner but who is operating T-Mobile is John Legere. Of course he is below DT.

Brian Perez

LEAVE TMOBILE ALONE STUPID FRENCH.tey cannot do anything to better us. I see no benefit to them wanting to get their hands on tmobile…

Sarah Palin

Man some really insightful material on here tonight! You probably don’t see any benefit because grandma’s basement window doesn’t have a good enough view to see France.

Can we just stop spreading the opinion of a financial analyst and never confirmed by DT that it wants a buyer for TMUS with spectrum and customers? Take a guess if he might have a conflict of interest to pander to possible US customers in a potential deal beneficial to him.

Durandal_1707

Okay, the unclosable full-page ads that completely obscured the content was one thing, but now I’m getting redirects to an overseas scam site claiming that my Flash Player is out of date when it isn’t and prompting me to download a virus. Could someone please do something about this?

Mobileguy

I’m getting the same thing. I thought I had malware but if you get it too there is apparently something on your system Cam.

Bilesha Welton

I’m always getting 404 errors on new articles. Definitely have some malware on this site and with all these ads I’m not the least bit surprised.

Trevnerdio

So it wasss from here. I found out that it was a DNS redirect on my router (I think) and ever since I reset it, it hasn’t come back.

james

No thx

jimbo

Excellent contribution, I’m sure DT cares about your opinion. Did it take 4 hours or 5 hours this time to type your opinion?

Garblicks

Why is this CNN popping up keep coming on the page when I try to read the latest articles

maximus1901

Frenchy must not be able to read English. Or German. DT already said offer must be $35-$40 PERRRR SHAAARE

Dumbo1901

Or maybe they know more about business negotiations than your simple brain. Just because DT said what they are targeting for a share price doesn’t mean they will achieve it.

Stefan Naumowicz

Of course they are going to SAY they need a higher price, might as well try and get the best offer. If you’re selling your car and asking 10k, and someone finally comes along and offers 8k, would you accept it right away or try and work them up closer to your asking price? Now apply that principle to a company worth billions of dollars. Also, by increasing the amount of shares they would be purchasing (albeit at the same rate per share) the deal is more attractive from DT’s standpoint because a) it gets them closer to a complete exit from the market, and b) its a higher lump sum into their pockets

JBLmobileG1

If DT was smart they would not sell T-Mobile USA at all. It’s like their goose that lays the golden egg for them right now and probably will be for them well into the future. The American dollar is stronger than the Euro right now (why do you think the French want to buy them?) and I think they (DT) needs Tmobile USA to help them out. To sell something that is so successful, which has caused such a racket and change in the mobile industry, would be a very bad move for them and probably end up hurting them in the long run if they do sell. If DT is smart they will put an end to the selling rumors once and for all and tell everyone that they are here to stay for the long haul.

justmee002

I believe DT still wants to move away from the US market and get in the sport gambling business asap.

Wilfredo Martinez

Well they are dumb and it has become obvious that DT has been lying and these proposed mergers from AT&T and then from Sprint weren’t really about them not being able to keep T-Mobile because of lack of $, it was really all about greed on DT’s behalf. Because it is clear that at first AT&T definitely wanted to merge because of corporate greed, but at first I thought that DT really wanted an out, now I see it was all a lie. Then the second shot, Sprint/Softbank offer… At glance I thought DT just really wanted another break-up fee just like it got from AT&T but they actually wanted to merge with Sprint for “scale” purposes and because DT secretly wants the U.S to only consist of 3 wireless companies for their own agenda. But now with Iliad’s offer I see that DT doesn’t really want an out of the U.S market that badly. If they desperately wanted an out why not take Iliad’s offer and run before the auctions? This is their chance and such a deal would not be opposed by regulators FCC nor DOJ. But of course they have rejected the offer because what DT wants is to consolidate with a competitor in market and create a bigger corporation that would end up harming consumers (BY CHARGING HIGER PRICES), all while they keep a minimal share from the newly formed entity in order to continue making money, money at the expense of American consumers.
It’s so clear now, they figured, and planned it out, with only 3 companies controlling the U.S wireless market, they were going to screw Americans BIG TIME by colliding with the other big two entities and raising prices either by reducing the data caps or raising prices directly on their own. Maybe AT&T was the one that initially planned it, promising DT a share in the profits. When that failed, DT turned its sights back at Sprint, who back then, was really only looking out for themselves when they opposed the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile in the name of consumers (more BS). It is quite clear that these wireless companies have been in collusion and the FCC, DOJ, FTC should investigate DT/T-Mobile. Fortunately, the FCC and DOJ saw through all this BS TWICE and actually protected America from these companies colliding and screwing us over TWICE. Had they not done their part, we would have has a similar experience that Canada is currently experiencing with 3 large wireless companies, lack of competition, higher prices, 3 year contracts instead of 2 etc etc.

Anonymous

DT wants to sell it’s stake in T-mobile and out of the US market because they upset about the NSA turmoil in Germany. LOL!

Anonymous II

Who wants french fries with their T-MO? Not in the US! I mean WTF, this french fries company is much smaller then T-MO.

Jeremy

Please report on real news and not fake. T-Mobile US Inc. Chief Executive Officer John Legere said he’s “sick and tired” of the speculation about the fate of his company. Just Google .Bloomberg

Jeremy

How come no coverage of T-Mobile CEO John Legere rocked the house at the GeekWire Summit yesterday . Google Geekwire for video.

Wilfredo Martinez

“DT’s ideal candidate is a company with an existing U.S. subscriber base and U.S. spectrum” DT is playing with fire, the FCC has clearly stated that they don’t want anymore consolidation in the U.S wireless market, yet DT is the one pushing for this. If it is true they can’t hold on to T-Mobile because lack of $ then sell it to Iliad already! Or go ahead and merge with Dish which isn’t in the wireless market yet! DT needs to stop, what will be next, they’ll try to merge T-Mobile with Verizon now?

Wilfredo Martinez

DT just can’t overrule regulators and do whatever they want with their T-Mobile unit. There are rules in the United States, no one is telling DT to hold on to its T-Mobile unit, by all means they can sell. But from what DT is stating “DT’s ideal candidate is a company with an existing U.S. subscriber base and U.S. spectrum” it is clear that they are pushing for consolidation in a market that is too consolidated already. FTC, FCC and DOJ will not be made a fool of. It has been signaled and stated that 4 NATIONAL wireless providers is good for consumers yet DT continues to play with fire by making such statements as “DT’s ideal candidate is a company with an existing U.S. subscriber base and U.S. spectrum” . If you are a company looking to get rid of a foreign operating unit ASAP because of lack of cash then you sell it when you get the chance, you don’t look for “IDEAL CANDIDATES” and you sell for a reasonable price. DT is definitely playing with fire and they might get burned by the FCC, FTC and DOJ.

Jay J. Blanco

Sounds like US Cellular lol

Ggff

This is false.

Wilfredo Martinez

What is false ? Elaborate.

Mike

Oh boy, here we go again. Having TMO on the sales treadmill is a distraction from TMO moving forward. Imagine where TMO would be if DT made a commitment to moving this company forward.

Winski

Please Cam… Get the word to Blommie…. MAKE THIS KLOWN GO AWAY !!!

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